Yellow Avens

This species is used medicinally and as a source of oil.

Roots fascicled, fibrous. Stems erect, 30–100 cm tall, together with petioles spreading rigid hairy, rarely glabrescent. Radical leaves lyrate-pinnate, 5–15 cm including petiole, usually with 2–6 pairs of leaflets, both surfaces sparsely rigid hairy; leaflets unequal, terminal one largest, broadly rhombic-ovate or compressed orbicular, 4–15 × 5–15 cm, base broadly cordate to cuneate, margin usually irregularly coarsely serrate, apex obtuse or acute; cauline leaves: stipules green, leaflike, ovate, large, margin irregularly coarsely serrate; leaf blade pinnate, sometimes repeatedly lobed; terminal leaflet lanceolate or obovate-lanceolate, base cuneate, apex often acuminate or shortly so. Inflorescence terminal, lax. Flowers 1–1.7 cm in diam.; pedicel pubescent or hirtellous. Sepals ovate-triangular, apex acuminate; epicalyx segments lanceolate, minute, ca. 1/2 as long as sepals, abaxially pubescent and villous, apex acuminate, rarely 2-fid. Petals yellow, suborbicular, longer than sepals. Style terminal, twisted at joint ca. 1/4 way from apex; proximal section pilose; distal section deciduous at fruit maturity. Achene aggregate obovoid; fruiting receptacle hispidulous, hairs ca. 1 mm; achenes hirtellous; proximal section of style persistent, glabrous, apex hooked. Fl. and fr. Jul–Oct.

Gansu, Guizhou, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [widespread in N temperate zone].

Forests, open places in forests, grassy mountain slopes, river and stream banks, fields; 200--3500 m.

Geum aleppicum var. bipinnatum (Batalin) Handel-Mazzetti; G. intermedium Besser ex Marschall von Bieberstein (1808), not Ehrhart (1791), nor Willdenow (1806), nor Tenore ex Nyman (1878); G. potaninii Juzepczuk; G. strictum Aiton; G. strictum var. bipinnatum Batalin; G. vidalii Franchet & Savatier.